nuwara eliya

Beautiful Gardens in Sri Lanka

Posted on February 19, 2021March 15, 2021 by harrytinkers

For Nature lovers Sri Lanka is the best place to enjoys the nature’s beauty. The whole country is blessed with lush greenery. On your visit to Sri Lanka do visit the below places:

Tea Estate: Nuwara Eliya

Tea gardens are always very enchanting because its mostly situated in the hilly regions with misty ambience. Everything looks so dreamy around them. Being a Bollywood fan, I get reminded of lots of songs shot in Tea garden and every time I visit a tea estate, I hum these songs, Super filmy you know.

One such place was the Blue field Tea estate in Nuwara Eliya. We had a tea factory tour in which we were familiarized with the different grades of tea leaves and the process of making the export quality tea leaves. The tea gardens were beautiful as always. What we loved the most is the tea cake which was served with our complimentary varieties of tea

Royal Botanical Garden: Kandy

Being a nature enthusiast, I have fond of flowers and gardens to an extensive level. My happiness level automatically jumps to 100% when I’m with the flowers.

We happen to visit Royal Botanical Garden in Kandy. The total area of the botanical garden is 147 acres and the entrance fees is 1500 Sri Lankan Rupees. The botanical garden welcomes you with sky high tree on either side of the footpath. You can hear birds chirping, squirrels playing, bees and butterflies swarming everywhere. It was a totally magical place for me. I wanted to capture each and every moment in this garden, that’s how crazy I become.

The garden is renowned for its orchid varieties and palm framed pathways and has a dedicated space for the same. A small and neat orchid house built inside the Royal Botanical Gardens exhibits some of the best orchid species.

It’s the oldest gardens in Sri Lanka dated back to 1300s. this spectacular garden is enclosed on three sides by a large bend in the longest river in Sri Lanka: Mahaweli River.

It is the best botanical garden in the whole of Asia. The gardens are attached to the National Herbarium of Sri Lanka. It’s said that The Royal Botanical Gardens of Peradeniya was used as the South-east Asian Headquarters of the Allied Forces during the Second World War.

You would probably need the whole day to explore the gardens extensively. The garden is divided in 30 different parts namely Double coconut, Pinetum, Palm collection, Cooks pine avenue, Orchid house, spice garden and many more. We just had Half a day to explore this so we couldn’t cover most of the area.

Timings: 8 AM – 6 PM

Spice Garden:

Never ever thought about visiting a place like this, a garden full of spices. Also, it truly resembled like my grandmother’s backyard garden with all the plants and trees famous for the spices, We visited Sirilak spice and herbal botanical garden Kawudupelella, Sri Lanka.

Got to observe many new plants which I never knew about so it was a good learning experience. Me being a plant lover I m always keen to enlighten myself with more and more plant knowledge. The best one was Vanilla plant.

We were also offered a spice tea which we were little skeptical about and surprisingly it was super delicious.

Do visit a spice garden on your visit to Sri Lanka.

A visit to Sri Lanka is incomplete without visiting these beautiful gardens
Harrytinkers

Srilanka

Posted on February 5, 2021March 15, 2021 by harrytinkers

Nuwara Eliya is a city in the hill station in Sri Lanka, also called “city on the plain (table land)” or “city of light” and “little England. The city is famous for its landscape and temperate climate. It islocated at an altitude of 6,128 ft and is known as the tea capital of Srilanka Nuwara Eliya has cool climate and one of the coolest areas in Sri Lanka.

The city is surrounded with tea gardens and hills. The city gives a British village feel amalgamated with colonial-era bungalows, Tudor-style hotels, well-kept hedges and neat gardens.

Nuwara Eliya or Seetha Eliya or Little England of Sri Lanka is well known for is forest looking ambience all around. The temperature is towards a lower side in this city as it’s a hill station. The climate is very pleasant in the daytime and its starts turning quite cold at night. Nuwara Eliya is blessed with nature’s bounty and that’s the major reason it attracts plenty of tourists per year.

Aadishakti Seeta Amman Temple

Sri Lanka is known since our Indian Epic Ramayana. As soon as you think of Sri Lanka the first picture which comes to my mind is of Ravana, and a series of imaginations pops up in my mind thinking about the times when Ravana used to rule Sri Lanka.

And to my surprise I got to witness some evidence of places where Ravana kept seetha in hostage. Not any of my imaginations could give this place a justice for its beauty, Sita was really lucky to have stayed in the beautiful valley (even though in hostage).

There is a temple dedicated to Seeta here in Nuwara Eliya which is known as Aadishakti Seeta Amman Temple. This temple is unique because it’s the only temple dedicated to Sita in Sri Lanka. The temple is painted orange with golden highlights on all the sculptures on the temple. There is no entrance fees for the temple.

According to the story Lord hanuman had Burned Lanka during his first visit which has turned the soil here in Black colour. There is a stream by the side of the temple where that runs from the hill, catered to the needs of Sita Devi during her stay at Ashok Vatika. She is also said to have bathed in this stream. About a century ago of three idols were discovered in the stream.

Temple timings

Morning 8AM to 1PM
Afternoon: 2PM to 6:30PM

Interesting Fact: There are few depressions on the rock besides the stream which is believed to be foot prints akin to Lord Hanuman’s. Some are of small size (resembles human feet) and some are of large size (resembles monkey paw),

The water flowing from the stream is sweet in taste as we tasted it during our visit.

Gregory park

Gregory lake or Gregory reservoir is situated at the heart of Nuwara Eliya city. It’s a beautiful park with Gregory reservoir being its major attraction. The Park is filled with exotic flora. The garden is huge and tourists love to relax here.

You can enjoy various water sports in this lake namely speedboat and jet ski. The charges of these activities totally depend on your bargaining skills. We paid 1000 Sri Lankan Rupees for jet ski and 600 Sri Lankan Rupees for speed boat per person. The entry fee for Gregory lake is 200 Sri Lankan Rupees.